The Thirty-Nine Steps Read online

  I had very few notions about Free Trade one way or the other, but I saw no other chance to get what I wanted. My young gentleman was far too absorbed in his own difficulties to think how odd it was to ask a stranger who had just missed death by an ace and had lost a 1,000-guinea car to address a meeting for him on the spur of the moment. But my necessities did not allow me to contemplate oddnesses or to pick and choose my supports.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m not much good as a speaker, but I’ll tell them a bit about Australia.’

  At my words the cares of the ages slipped from his shoulders, and he was rapturous in his thanks. He lent me a big driving coat—and never troubled to ask why I had started on a motor tour without possessing an ulster—and, as we slipped down the dusty roads, poured into my ears the simple facts of his history. He was an orphan, and his uncle had brought him up—I’ve forgotten the uncle’s name, but he was in the Cabinet, and you can read his speeches in the papers. He had gone round the world after leaving Cambridge, and then, being short of a job, his uncle had advised politics. I gathered that he had no preference in parties. ‘Good chaps in both,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and plenty of blighters, too. I’m Liberal, because my family have always been Whigs.’ But if he was lukewarm politically he had strong views on other things. He found out I knew a bit about horses, and jawed away about the Derby entries; and he was full of plans for improving his shooting. Altogether, a very clean, decent, callow young man.

  As we passed through a little town two policemen signalled us to stop, and flashed their lanterns on us.

  ‘Beg pardon, Sir Harry,’ said one. ‘We’ve got instructions to look out for a car, and the description’s no unlike yours.’

  ‘Right-o,’ said my host, while I thanked Providence for the devious ways I had been brought to safety. After that he spoke no more, for his mind began to labour heavily with his coming speech. His lips kept muttering, his eye wandered, and I began to prepare myself for a second catastrophe. I tried to think of something to say myself, but my mind was dry as a stone. The next thing I knew we had drawn up outside a door in a street, and were being welcomed by some noisy gentlemen with rosettes. The hall had about five hundred in it, women mostly, a lot of bald heads, and a dozen or two young men. The chairman, a weaselly minister with a reddish nose, lamented Crumpleton’s absence, soliloquized on his influenza, and gave me a certificate as a ‘trusted leader of Australian thought’. There were two policemen at the door, and I hoped they took note of that testimonial. Then Sir Harry started.

  I never heard anything like it. He didn’t begin to know how to talk. He had about a bushel of notes from which he read, and when he let go of them he fell into one prolonged stutter. Every now and then he remembered a phrase he had learned by heart, straightened his back, and gave it off like Henry Irving, and the next moment he was bent double and crooning over his papers. It was the most appalling rot, too. He talked about the ‘German menace’, and said it was all a Tory invention to cheat the poor of their rights and keep back the great flood of social reform, but that ‘organized labour’ realized this and laughed the Tories to scorn. He was all for reducing our Navy as a proof of our good faith, and then sending Germany an ultimatum telling her to do the same or we would knock her into a cocked hat. He said that, but for the Tories, Germany and Britain would be fellow-workers in peace and reform. I thought of the little black book in my pocket! A giddy lot Scudder’s friends cared for peace and reform.

  Yet in a queer way I liked the speech. You could see the niceness of the chap shining out behind the muck with which he had been spoon-fed. Also it took a load off my mind. I mightn’t be much of an orator, but I was a thousand per cent better than Sir Harry.

  I didn’t get on so badly when it came to my turn. I simply told them all I could remember about Australia, praying there should be no Australian there—all about its labour party and emigration and universal service. I doubt if I remembered to mention Free Trade, but I said there were no Tories in Australia, only Labour and Liberals. That fetched a cheer, and I woke them up a bit when I started in to tell them the kind of glorious business I thought could be made out of the Empire if we really put our backs into it.

  Altogether I fancy I was rather a success. The minister didn’t like me, though, and when he proposed a vote of thanks, spoke of Sir Harry’s speech as ‘statesmanlike’ and mine as having ‘the eloquence of an emigration agent’.

  When we were in the car again my host was in wild spirits at having got his job over. ‘A ripping speech, Twisdon,’ he said. ‘Now, you’re coming home with me. I’m all alone, and if you’ll stop a day or two I’ll show you some very decent fishing.’

  We had a hot supper—and I wanted it pretty badly—and then drank grog in a big cheery smoking-room with a crackling wood fire. I thought the time had come for me to put my cards on the table. I saw by this man’s eye that he was the kind you can trust.

  ‘Listen, Sir Harry,’ I said. ‘I’ve something pretty important to say to you. You’re a good fellow, and I’m going to be frank. Where on earth did you get that poisonous rubbish you talked tonight?’

  His face fell. ‘Was it as bad as that?’ he asked ruefully. ‘It did sound rather thin. I got most of it out of the Progressive Magazine and pamphlets that agent chap of mine keeps sending me. But you surely don’t think Germany would ever go to war with us?’

  ‘Ask that question in six weeks and it won’t need an answer,’ I said. ‘If you’ll give me your attention for half an hour I am going to tell you a story.’

  I can see yet that bright room with the deers’ heads and the old prints on the walls, Sir Harry standing restlessly on the stone curb of the hearth, and myself lying back in an armchair, speaking. I seemed to be another person, standing aside and listening to my own voice, and judging carefully the reliability of my tale. It was the first time I had ever told anyone the exact truth, so far as I understood it, and it did me no end of good, for it straightened out the thing in my own mind. I blinked no detail. He heard all about Scudder, and the milkman, and the note-book, and my doings in Galloway. Presently he got very excited and walked up and down the hearth-rug.

  ‘So you see,’ I concluded, ‘you have got here in your house the man that is wanted for the Portland Place murder. Your duty is to send your car for the police and give me up. I don’t think I’ll get very far. There’ll be an accident, and I’ll have a knife in my ribs an hour or so after arrest. Nevertheless, it’s your duty, as a law-abiding citizen. Perhaps in a month’s time you’ll be sorry, but you have no cause to think of that.’

  He was looking at me with bright steady eyes. ‘What was your job in Rhodesia, Mr Hannay?’ he asked.

  ‘Mining engineer,’ I said. ‘I’ve made my pile cleanly and I’ve had a good time in the making of it.’

  ‘Not a profession that weakens the nerves, is it?’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, as to that, my nerves are good enough.’ I took down a hunting-knife from a stand on the wall, and did the old Mashona trick of tossing it and catching it in my lips. That wants a pretty steady heart.

  He watched me with a smile. ‘I don’t want proof. I may be an ass on the platform, but I can size up a man. You’re no murderer and you’re no fool, and I believe you are speaking the truth. I’m going to back you up. Now, what can I do?’

  ‘First, I want you to write a letter to your uncle. I’ve got to get in touch with the Government people sometime before the 15th of June.’

  He pulled his moustache. ‘That won’t help you. This is Foreign Office business, and my uncle would have nothing to do with it. Besides, you’d never convince him. No, I’ll go one better. I’ll write to the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office. He’s my godfather, and one of the best going. What do you want?’

  He sat down at a table and wrote to my dictation. The gist of it was that if a man called Twisdon (I thought I had better stick to that name) turned up before June 15th he was to entreat him kindly. He said Twisdon would prove his b
ona fides by passing the word ‘Black Stone’ and whistling ‘Annie Laurie’.

  ‘Good,’ said Sir Harry. ‘That’s the proper style. By the way, you’ll find my godfather—his name’s Sir Walter Bullivant—down at his country cottage for Whitsuntide. It’s close to Artinswell on the Kenner. That’s done. Now, what’s the next thing?’

  ‘You’re about my height. Lend me the oldest tweed suit you’ve got. Anything will do, so long as the colour is the opposite of the clothes I destroyed this afternoon. Then show me a map of the neighbourhood and explain to me the lie of the land. Lastly, if the police come seeking me, just show them the car in the glen. If the other lot turn up, tell them I caught the south express after your meeting.’

  He did, or promised to do, all these things. I shaved off the remnants of my moustache, and got inside an ancient suit of what I believe is called heather mixture. The map gave me some notion of my whereabouts, and told me the two things I wanted to know—where the main railway to the south could be joined and what were the wildest districts near at hand. At two o’clock he wakened me from my slumbers in the smoking-room armchair, and led me blinking into the dark starry night. An old bicycle was found in a tool-shed and handed over to me.

  ‘First turn to the right up by the long fir-wood,’ he enjoined. ‘By daybreak you’ll be well into the hills. Then I should pitch the machine into a bog and take to the moors on foot. You can put in a week among the shepherds, and be as safe as if you were in New Guinea.’

  I pedalled diligently up steep roads of hill gravel till the skies grew pale with morning. As the mists cleared before the sun, I found myself in a wide green world with glens falling on every side and a far-away blue horizon. Here, at any rate, I could get early news of my enemies.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Adventure of the Spectacled Roadman

  I sat down on the very crest of the pass and took stock of my position.

  Behind me was the road climbing through a long cleft in the hills, which was the upper glen of some notable river. In front was a flat space of maybe a mile, all pitted with bog-holes and rough with tussocks, and then beyond it the road fell steeply down another glen to a plain whose blue dimness melted into the distance. To left and right were round-shouldered green hills as smooth as pancakes, but to the south—that is, the left hand—there was a glimpse of high heathery mountains, which I remembered from the map as the big knot of hill which I had chosen for my sanctuary. I was on the central boss of a huge upland country, and could see everything moving for miles. In the meadows below the road half a mile back a cottage smoked, but it was the only sign of human life. Otherwise there was only the calling of plovers and the tinkling of little streams.

  It was now about seven o’clock, and as I waited I heard once again that ominous beat in the air. Then I realized that my vantage-ground might be in reality a trap. There was no cover for a tomtit in those bald green places.

  I sat quite still and hopeless while the beat grew louder. Then I saw an aeroplane coming up from the east. It was flying high, but as I looked it dropped several hundred feet and began to circle round the knot of hill in narrowing circles, just as a hawk wheels before it pounces. Now it was flying very low, and now the observer on board caught sight of me. I could see one of the two occupants examining me through glasses.

  Suddenly it began to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward again till it became a speck in the blue morning.

  That made me do some savage thinking. My enemies had located me, and the next thing would be a cordon round me. I didn’t know what force they could command, but I was certain it would be sufficient. The aeroplane had seen my bicycle, and would conclude that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a chance on the moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a hundred yards from the highway, and plunged it into a moss-hole, where it sank among pond-weed and water-buttercups. Then I climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys. Nothing was stirring on the long white ribbon that threaded them.

  I have said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat. As the day advanced it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had the fragrant sunniness of the South African veld. At other times I would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate me. The free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of a dungeon.

  I tossed a coin—heads right, tails left—and it fell heads, so I turned to the north. In a little I came to the brow of the ridge which was the containing wall of the pass. I saw the highroad for maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving, and that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a rolling green moor, which fell away into wooded glens.

  Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I can see things for which most men need a telescope … Away down the slope, a couple of miles away, several men were advancing, like a row of beaters at a shoot …

  I dropped out of sight behind the sky-line. That way was shut to me, and I must try the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway. The car I had noticed was getting nearer, but it was still a long way off with some very steep gradients before it. I ran hard, crouching low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the brow of the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures—one, two, perhaps more—moving in a glen beyond the stream?

  If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only one chance of escape. You must stay in the patch, and let your enemies search it and not find you. That was good sense, but how on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place? I would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water or climbed the tallest tree. But there was not a stick of wood, the bog-holes were little puddles, the stream was a slender trickle. There was nothing but short heather, and bare hill bent, and the white highway.

  Then in a tiny bight of road, beside a heap of stones, I found the roadman.

  He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He looked at me with a fishy eye and yawned.

  ‘Confoond the day I ever left the herdin’!’ he said, as if to the world at large. ‘There I was my ain maister. Now I’m a slave to the Goavernment, tethered to the roadside, wi’ sair een, and a back like a suckle.’

  He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an oath, and put both hands to his ears. ‘Mercy on me! My heid’s burstin’!’ he cried.

  He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a week’s beard on his chin, and a pair of big horn spectacles.

  ‘I canna dae’t,’ he cried again. ‘The Surveyor maun just report me. I’m for my bed.’

  I asked him what was the trouble, though indeed that was clear enough.

  ‘The trouble is that I’m no sober. Last nicht my dochter Merran was waddit, and they danced till fower in the byre. Me and some ither chiels sat down to the drinkin’, and here I am. Peety that I ever lookit on the wine when it was red!’

  I agreed with him about bed. ‘It’s easy speakin’,’ he moaned. ‘But I got a postcard yestreen sayin’ that the new Road Surveyor would be round the day. He’ll come and he’ll no find me, or else he’ll find me fou, and either way I’m a done man. I’ll awa’ back to my bed and say I’m no weel, but I doot that’ll no help me, for they ken my kind o’ no-weel-ness.’

  Then I had an inspiration. ‘Does the new Surveyor know you?’ I asked.

  ‘No him. He’s just been a week at the job. He rins about in a wee motor-cawr, and wad speir the inside oot o’ a whelk.’

  ‘Where’s your house?’ I asked, and was directed by a wavering finger to the cottage by the stream.

  ‘Well, back to your bed,’ I said, ‘and sleep in peace. I’ll take on your job for a bit and see the Surveyor.’

  He stared at me blankly; then, as the notion dawned on his fuddled brain, his face broke into the vacant drunkard’s smile.

  ‘You’re the billy,’ he cried. ‘It’ll be easy ene
uch managed. I’ve finished that bing o’ stanes, so you needna chap ony mair this forenoon. Just take the barry, and wheel eneuch metal frae yon quarry doon the road to mak anither bing the morn. My name’s Alexander Turnbull, and I’ve been seeven year at the trade, and twenty afore that herdin’ on Leithen Water. My freens ca’ me Ecky, and whiles Specky, for I wear glesses, being waik i’ the sicht. Just you speak the Surveyor fair, and ca’ him Sir, and he’ll be fell pleased. I’ll be back or midday.’

  I borrowed his spectacles and filthy old hat; stripped off coat, waistcoat, and collar, and gave him them to carry home; borrowed, too, the foul stump of a clay pipe as an extra property. He indicated my simple tasks, and without more ado set off at an amble bedwards. Bed may have been his chief object, but I think there was also something left in the foot of a bottle. I prayed that he might be safe under cover before my friends arrived on the scene.

  Then I set to work to dress for the part. I opened the collar of my shirt—it was a vulgar blue-and-white check such as ploughmen wear—and revealed a neck as brown as any tinker’s. I rolled up my sleeves, and there was a forearm which might have been a blacksmith’s, sunburnt and rough with old scars. I got my boots and trouser-legs all white from the dust of the road, and hitched up my trousers, tying them with string below the knee. Then I set to work on my face. With a handful of dust I made a water-mark round my neck, the place where Mr Turnbull’s Sunday ablutions might be expected to stop. I rubbed a good deal of dirt also into the sunburn of my cheeks. A roadman’s eyes would no doubt be a little inflamed, so I contrived to get some dust in both of mine, and by dint of vigorous rubbing produced a bleary effect.

  The sandwiches Sir Harry had given me had gone off with my coat, but the roadman’s lunch, tied up in a red handkerchief, was at my disposal. I ate with great relish several of the thick slabs of scone and cheese and drank a little of the cold tea. In the handkerchief was a local paper tied with string and addressed to Mr Turnbull—obviously meant to solace his midday leisure. I did up the bundle again, and put the paper conspicuously beside it.